


Raise Your Weapon

by wonderble



Category: Person Of Interest - Fandom, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: M/M, Some Descriptions of Violence, because it's John Reese, but not terribly violent, mainly thoughts about perpetrating violence with desk stationary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 20:09:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderble/pseuds/wonderble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are the dead man's switches to each others' shaking hands, the last safety catch when the whole world goes boom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raise Your Weapon

Even now, with nothing but a pen and some bad experiences at hand, John can still think of ten (no -- twelve, if he did not toss away the pen) ways he could kill Finch.

It comes naturally, like biting down when there's something in his mouth or blinking at the brightness of the sun.

There has been nothing but downpour for the past two days. There has been no calls shattering a peaceful park walk, no rapid clicks of a keyboard researching. Perhaps even criminals disliked being damp.

John does not care for it either. His arsenal is as clean as it ever will be and the white sound hammering down around him leaves something too much like silence to fill. It allows his thoughts to gather together, gain mass and drop heavily.

Like now.

Finch is pacing in his self made cage, flitting from stack to stack. John would wait for the moment of transition, when Finch moved his ponderous weight from his good leg to his bad, the absolute apex at which he is the most unbalanced. Apply the right amount of force and then --  
  
The body would tumble sharply and crack; if the angle's right, that will be enough. If not, a snapped neck would be the second easiest method, though there are Harold's fused vertebrae to consider. There are two ways to go about strangulation -- from the back or from the front. Amateurs use their hands; forearms are the best.

(He still remembers how Harold had shivered, how his adam's apple had bobbed frantically, still could smell the salty sweet tang of panicked sweat and expensive aftershave -- the first time, the only time -- he had ever come _that_ close.)

The nose is also a good target -- cartilage would go into that keen brain like a needle through velvet.

If he doesn't want to leave trace evidence or invite inquiries from unwanted sources, a well placed strike to the chest, just as Harold's heart pauses between beats, could induce cardiac arrhythmia and mimic a heart attack.  
  
The pen twirls in John's hand, almost fast enough to hover. The library itself (eight easily accessible exits -- fifteen, if he's willing leave Finch, twelve if he's not willing to leave Bear), means there are books, electrical cords, the old heater that he had dragged up but Harold had refused to use since it was a danger to his beloved volumes.

But that's cheating.  
  
Putting the pen down, John stretches his hands, curling and uncurling each finger. He could try to think of other things beyond the demise of his boss. He has tried, before.

And it's like shouting at the sun to stop its rising and setting.

He sees what he sees -- and he will always see the slender curve of exposed necks, see the waiting crunch of arms that could be bent back, see that which could be easily broken, that which could be easily used.

Though there are exceptions now. More accurately, _an_ exception.

Leila.

But only because the agency assumes that even the most idiotic of operatives could figure out some way to take out a baby, with or without training.

(He doesn't think it's because they had never ordered it done. It'd be like shouting at the sun.)

But the others -- Theresa, Darren, Mattie, Joss, Lionel, Leon ... any and all them --  he knows the best way, the most efficient way, the most easily concealed way, for each one. He knows their weaknesses, their strengths. They would be helpless before him.

And there are so many. This way to rend and that way to tear, a whole dictionary of ways to dissolve a corpse so that not even the bones would be left behind. Given time, even the memory of their names would fade, like so many before them, before the machine and its numbers.

That is why, perhaps. That is his reason and his rationale when he forces himself (and that's the truth laid bare -- there is always force involved) to only think about Finch (and no other) on days like this, when the sky weighs down and the minutes drag by. The work is already half done for him; Harold has nothing left to dissipate, not even a name.

John knows one day, in one of the ways he's already considered so carefully, it will probably end. (Even if not by John's hand, it will still always, always be his fault. Always).

So maybe it is better to think about it first, the infinite possibilities of the macabre. Perhaps it's better to take a direct hand. Perhaps inflicting an initial puncture wound will make the passage of the final bullet easier.

Even if Finch was armed --

"If you're done planning my murder, I would like to discuss the possibility of lunch," the dry voice interrupts him.

John doesn't ask how his partner knew (always knows). The eyes are sharp behind the glasses and the downward twitch of the mouth is as severe as any knife wound. John can read exasperation, and perhaps some annoyance.

But strangely enough, not disapproval. Not fear.

Not anymore.

Harold's eyes holds John's evenly; the other man will not back away. Perhaps Finch will even arch against the harsh grip, perhaps he will press that thin, trembling neck into John's constricting fingers (though only amateurs did it that way).

There is even a chance that Harold would even bend and expose more of that delicate column of a spine, already so ravaged. 

John knows this much, however. Harold will never back away. No matter how his skeleton is fractured or splintered. No matter if his skin is shredded or his organs ripped out.

Harold thinks of himself as gone already, and there's nothing left in him for John to destroy. Nothing John could (would?) ever truly destroy.

It is why John is allowed to think such thoughts about him-- and only him. It is why John is allowed to be who he is. Encouraged, in some ways. With Harold, he can take the worst of his thoughts to the very brink.

And then, knowingly, consciously, step back. Always.

Something stirs, deep down within him, pooling hot and heavy in response.

The count is up to thirteen now, even without the pen.

\---

Reese is planning his murder again. The operative's fists have gone white knuckled, tendons straining.

It has become almost annoyingly predictable, like a coded sequence with an expected payload. Each hour without a number means another hour where John was left with nothing but his own over-trained skills and thoughts to keep him company.

If he was feeling poetic, Harold would have said that John was a weapon always aimed. If there is no target, John will make one.

And guess who John is around the most?

Lucky me, Harold thinks briefly. (In his own head, the words are not sarcastic. _Mostly_ not, anyways.)

By now, John is probably up to twenty ways to kill and/or maim, even without any tools or weapons. Heaven knew that the possibilities would be endless if John decides to be creative with the implements. The stapler _alone_ probably adds a nice headcount.

Reese is never disarmed, at least not physically.

But there are other ways.

Fourteen of them start with a simple word. Jessica.  
  
The name Joss would take the total to at least thirty. Lionel brought it to forty two, possibly. There are many more, of course, as many as there are books in the library.

Regardless, even if one day his partner's fingers does get too itchy or if the targets too large, he knows the number one mark on John's list. And it isn't Harold.

No matter how those blue eyes hone in on Harold like a laser guided sight, it isn't him.

Harold wouldn't have to pull a single trigger at all.

And even if John misses his own head with a killshot, even if the names of the living and the once living prove to be not enough, there are files prepared. Harold doesn't have to hold up two fingers and swear like a boyscout for this to be his motto: always have a contingency.

The code had been entered a long, long before that first encounter, when the man before him had neatly taken out two of Harold's bodyguards -- all while smelling of cheap booze and too many days spent wrapped up in yesterday's news.

There has been one concession, however. Harold has lengthened the time and parameters on the dead man's switch. Root had seen to that.

(When he told John that his death, their deaths, would not matter, he had not been lying.)

The _manner_ in which he died, though -- that is a different story. The numbers are victims or perpetrators. Victims are to be saved.

Perpetrators, however ...

John was one of his first, after all. Harold still hasn't decided which category John belongs in or even if there _is_ any group that could possibly contain his ever dangerous and ever endangered partner.

Seven days without a check in and the program would initiate. It would seek, analyze, and evaluate and then -- eliminate/start the contingency. Help/destroy John Reese. Or perhaps even both.

Codes are just numbers in binary, after all -- not as powerful as a bullet to the brain or the blunt crack of a bat-- but there wouldn't be any place for John (anyone) to hide (not forever), if the code went live.

And if it found John to be the perpetrator? Everything John ever or never was, splayed and displayed on the front pages of every agency (news and otherwise), dissected and bare to all. _Habeas Corpus_ , hell no. Harold didn't need a body to sink in a knife. Harold didn't need a beating heart or blood drenched lungs.

Reese could tear Finch apart with one hand.

Harold could shred John with a single word. 

Jessica, Joss, Lionel, Leila, Kara, Mark, Bear. The name of the farm in Puyallup, Washington, and those that lived there.

And what is in a name? Nothing so sweet --  crisscrossing and tying down and as damning as any bullet to the chest or strings around fingers around throats

Harold knows this much, knows the weight ( _Grace)_ , the heft ( _Nathan)_ , the pull ( _Will_ _)_ of names. Knows how to use them.

John knows this too. Knows there's more to Harold than just a quick crunch of bone and a last exhale.

Knows that power isn't in a weapon. It's neither the bang nor the bullet that brings people to heel, quivering for their lives. It's the knowledge of what will be done, what could be done, how it _all_ could end. Reese always comes in blazing, hands at the ready, gun drawn. But real power, true power  ...

Harold wouldn't even have to move a finger for an assault.

Down, down, beyond his cracked vertebrae and the leaking marrow of his spine, Harold knows this as his truth. Knows it in the building, gathering heat that worms its way up in response.

(Harold knows that the names are killing them both, will kill them both, in the end).

But until then, it wouldn't be a fair fight, not at all.

\---

"I was thinking Indian? You know, the one next to the only laundromat you're willing to trust with your pocket squares," John says. "It's close enough, so we wouldn't get _too_ wet."

Harold raises an eyebrow.

"No, I don't think so, not if you're talking about the one with the less than stellar tikka masala," he says, ostensibly towards the first suggestion, but half answering the other implication as well. "It's not the _only_ place though, however, if you insist on pursuing that line of cuisine."

A clatter of nails signals the eager approach of Bear. He had been asleep a few minutes ago, but the dog always has had a sixth sense about when his people are on the move. Harold allows himself one quick stroke of the ears. John tilts his head as well, almost as if feeling the caress himself. Both wait for a command.

"Thai, the one in East Village," Harold says finally. "They're dog friendly."

John huffs quietly, and since he is the nearest to the treat-and-leash cabinet, he retrieves both. Bear is nearly dancing on Harold's foot, nails clicking a flamenco of excitement. A quick word has him still, and Harold takes the leash to clip it on the lead. Safely collared now, Bear quiets; he knows better than to pull and disrupt Harold's balance.

As he straightens with a wince, John's hand comes to rest against his neck, exactly at the point of the C-4 vertebrae, where the metal drives its heaviest point into Harold's bones.

Effectively collared now, Harold knows better than to move and disrupt this balance. 

John's thumb kneads the thin strip of skin between the edge of Harold's suit and his neck. The grip is firm. Powerful. 

Controlled. Just one finger, and it is enough to make waves in the ocean of Harold's calm.

"You don't flinch anymore," John murmurs.

"Would there be a point?" despite his position, Harold snorts.

"There isn't a point, Finch. Flinching is an involuntary fear based reaction -- kinda like pulling back from something that burns. It's your body's safety measure. It's not a bad thing."

"You don't flinch, Mr. Reese."

"I have been trained. But in your case .... hmmmmm," Reese hums. "Too used to it, maybe? Or am I losing my touch?"

Harold can feel the tracings of that thumb through the C1 and C5, past the damaged columns, all the way down, it seems, to his gut and places past.

"I ... wouldn't say that. Perhaps you trained me too well? Or perhaps we've gone beyond safety measures," Harold says.

John's hand halts.

At their feet, Bear does not move. He does not whine.

The moment comes to a stillpoint as the clocks seem to stop, the seconds stretch, as John's thumb is joined by other fingers, resting on Harold's nape. It is a dangerous time, with no number between them and nothing but their natures in play.

It would be so easy, they both think.

Behind them, computer banks whirr. A second's snap, then seven more days before the fall, a world made and unmade.

But then ... John steps away, as he always did, as he always would.

There's a lingering coolness where his hand had been, and Harold has to stop himself from bringing his own hand up to rub that spot. He doesn't flinch anymore, no.

But that doesn't mean other reactions aren't automatic. His hand reaches out, catches the tip of John's receding grip, and holds firm.

If John were a poet, perhaps he would have said that there is something grand and soul shaking at being held just barely in check, at being his most powerful ... yet powerless ... within the same half drawn breath.

Harold could have been a poet. And there _is_ something grand and soul shaking about having something powerful rest its claws at his neck, just at the point of breaking ... while just barely keeping his own slightly sheathed in return.

And there could have been poetry in how they could take each other apart, muscle by muscle, down past the marrow of their bones. They are the dead man's switches to each others' shaking hands, the last safety catch when the whole world goes boom.

But there is something more than poetry, more than words and syllables, something more in these small, dragging moments that make them who they really are. Dangerous and in danger, choosing to meet in between.

"Feel like eating in? I hate getting wet," Harold says. They both ignore Bear's whine as Harold bends down again to release the leash.

As he rises, the grip is at his elbow this time, steadying. A hand also flits to the small of his back, tucking under the impeccable suit jacket. A demand. A question. Both.

Harold lifts his hand to rest at the junction of John's neck and shoulder.

"Hot pockets it is, then," John says, even as he reaches and meets that grip halfway, guiding it downward, ready to disarm and be disarmed.

End

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from [Raise Your Weapon](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnwfTHpnGLY) by deadmau5.
> 
> [Lyrics Here. ](http://www.metrolyrics.com/raise-your-weapon-lyrics-deadmau5.html)  
>    
> Big hug and thanks go to: giandujakiss, lionsassy, annchicago, eruditemonk, whitlockienterprisespresents, harpijka, managerie76, runningtortuss, aquabluejay, cactusspatz, festivaloffuckery, offuckinginterest for liking this piece when it was posted on Tumblr. It's really encouraging to know someone is reading (and liking) what I've written; it keeps me going. :)


End file.
